1970s energy policies must be overhauled to recognize new realities.

03/01/1974 - Alfred Wilson fills up his car in a crowded Exxon service station at Newcastle and the Southwest Freeway. The station opened their pumps at 3:00 pm today. Wilson drives around with a bicycle on top of his car in case he runs out of gas and has to cycle to a service station.

Most Americans who came of age in the 1970s are approaching 50 or have already crossed over. For the ever-expanding cohort too young to remember, we can sum up the '70s in a word: Forgettable.

This was the decade of: gasoline lines and price hikes during the Arab oil embargo and later during the Iran crisis; of Watergate; of an emergency American evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) that was both terrifying and humiliating - two years after a peace treaty was allegedly signed; of our great national "malaise" as proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in a memorable speech in July 1979; and the decade's final national indignity, Americans taken hostage by the mullahs in Iran in 1979 and held for 444 days until the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan on Jan. 20, 1981.

Forgettable. Nehru jackets are one of history's great fashion jokes. And when was the last time newlyweds were gifted with a fondue set?

So why is it that so much of U.S. energy policy is stuck in the 1970s with federal laws that are "antiquated," to use the apt description of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska ("Oil makes early leap onto political agenda," Page D1, Jan. 8)?

We think Sen. Murkowski is asking the right - and long overdue - question. Why a '70s-informed energy policy for a cutting-edge, 21st century industry that has reversed years of domestic production decline?

She deserves an answer. As does Washington's favorite punching bag, the fossil fuels industry. Legislative tweaking that modernizes the rules from the pre-Pacman era into the age of Google, in which supercomputers are boosting analysis and better seismic data collection techniques are giving geologists better raw data to plug in to the machines.

Logically, that reform process ought to begin with a loosening of shortage-inspired, '70s-era export regulations that hinder the industry's and the nation's ability to deal with gluts of light crude oil that are expected to build, as well as enormous increases of natural gas production from shale rock.

The shale revolution stretching from Texas across the nation to Pennsylvania and Ohio in the northeast and North Dakota in the upper Midwest has expanded domestic oil and gas production beyond the imagination, and all in the relative blink of an eye.

In 2013, this country overtook Russia as the world's leading producer of fossil fuels. And yet, the domestic industry remains handcuffed by outmoded federal regulations that prevent potential new international markets for U.S. product from operating efficiently.

The issue is of paramount importance to the Houston and Texas economies. The local issues that must be considered along with more workable rules and regulations are themselves nuanced.

Responding to market conditions years ago, large refineries here and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast retooled to use heavy crude such as that produced by Venezuela. That has introduced the potential of a glut of light crude produced domestically over the past few years.

The nuanced part in our local economy is that a host of major petrochemical manufacturing companies who call Houston home require a competitive price for their major feedstock - natural gas.

We think the logical way forward is to broaden access to export markets for both oil and natural gas. That is the most straightforward way to maintain market equilibrium for each product while avoiding both a glut for sweet crude and a depressed market that discourages natural gas production.

This won't happen easily. Old worries about shortages and old habits of demonizing "Big Oil" die hard among Washington's political class. Witness the implacable opposition to exports voiced by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a longtime critic of the oil industry.

Markey says, "American resources should stay right here to benefit our industries, our families and our security, not sent to China and other competitors."

Ironically, that position puts the liberal senator on the same side of the argument as the often-demonized Koch brothers, whose interests are best served by keeping natural gas prices depressed. Strange bedfellows.

As usual, the person who can do most to encourage movement on both political sides is President Obama.

His State of the Union address, upcoming on Jan. 28, offers a timely opportunity. He should take it by directing the Commerce Department to start approving some of these export applications.

When it comes to energy policy, the '70s aren't just "so yesterday"; they're prehistoric. Something must give, and soon.